Dead
by i ve landed
Summary: Last minute fic for the "Stroke of Midnight" Challenge at KakaSaku. Kakashi learns the hard way that time waits for no man...


"Dead"

By i_ve_landed / sayachimaera

_Naruto_

Kakashi / Sakura

Rated T

Summary: Kakashi is harshly reminded that time waits for no one...

* * *

The report had been clear, the kanji perfect and legible. His eye scanned the page twelve times. Hell, it had only taken twice to memorize the information.

_Haruno Sakura - Killed in action._

No, he would not be forgetting that cruel and ruthless tidbit of information _or_ the solemn look on his blond former student's face as his hand shook, delivering the message to the interim Hokage. Naruto's posture had been the first tip-off, the smell of his tears had been the last. The dirt and dried saline shoved its way through the atmosphere and pummeled a relentless path through the respiratory system of one, Hatake Kakashi.

He really wish it hadn't.

Naruto was long gone. His new brother of a teammate, Sai, had quietly led his whiskered companion away. It had been years since their first meeting, but Kakashi watched it happen, watched the silent robot of a man take the place of Uchiha Sasuke in the fox's heart. He was okay with it. The little shit had shown his true colours and the village was paying for it.

_But this..._

Kakashi sighed, closing his eyes and allowing the memories of the beautiful girl with cerise hair wash over him as little bombs and makeshift fireworks glistened in the sky to help usher in the new year. None of them mattered as the images came to him.

"_Ten!"_

Sakura at twelve, her long tresses and youth shining like the sun.

"Nine!"

Sakura at sixteen, punching a hole in the ground.

"Eight!"

Sakura the woman, proving her worth on the battlefield, then packing it up, turning in her report and keeping the hospital on track.

It was the latter version that lingered, his Sharingan relating to his mourning brain a personal slide show of what made Sakura so beautiful, so perfect, so desirable that he began "conveniently bumping into" her in the jounin lounge, at the Hokage Tower, around the village and even inside the hospital (much to the suspicion of several jealous female medics). Tonight had been the night, he had decided. A new year. So what if he was Hokage? He didn't want the job to begin with... Tonight was the night he had resolved to explain why she had started to see more of him.

"Five!"

No, Kakashi would never forget the first time he _really_ saw her long, slim legs beneath the modest bit of fabric she called a skirt. Her hair was the second thing that came to mind, its unusual hue so perfect against her alabaster skin that always seemed _too smooth_ to belong to a kunoichi.

"Three!"

His mind would have continued, except the click of the door to his office interrupted him. He didn't care. They could see him cry. They could watch as the Hokage's resolve melt into a puddle on the floor with a terrible message soaking up whatever was left of his soul...

"Two!"

But then there was that smell. That familiar damned smell of mint shampoo and the sickening scent of blood and traces of mustard gas...

"One! Happy New Year!"

Outside, voices cheered and more explosions went off. The thought never crossed his mind that they could have been under attack again, that the world could be ending and he was doing nothing to prevent it.

His jaw was slack. His fingers fumbling with his hitai-ate to be sure that it was real what stood before him. He even considered summoning Pakkun, because no one would confirm a scent better than him...

"Hokage-sama."

The bloodied figure spoke, fingers broken, bent in directions that were all wrong. The Sharingan counted three major injuries, stab wounds, scrapes, say nothing of the scent of poison that was probably doing a number on every internal organ it passed by...

Kakashi closed his eyes. The bombs... He had died... She would haunt him even in death, he was okay with that. But not like this, not like--

"Hokage-sama?"

He opened them again, wider this time. The air stung his lungs and the dried salt made his skin itch. "I don't understand..."

She walked closer to him, the red on her cheeks like bloody tears. His eyes fluttered in silent debate. _Pink hair... No, brown hair... Blood... No, markings... _The sweet, soft, feminine voice did little to help him. Yes, he had to be dead, had to be seeing Rin as she led him to whatever came next, if anything...

But it wasn't Rin, he quickly realized as he struggled to focus. Dirt had turned pink to brown and mixed with the red that had been spilled. Her blood and someone else's. He didn't want to think about how it got there. It was too much. Too terrible.

She took another step forward, her movements soundless the way ANBU had trained her to be. Every motion she made was deliberate, cautious. He was a wild animal and she was here to tame him. "Kakashi, it's me."

He let out the breath he didn't realize he had been holding. He tilted his head, wanting to believe. Wanting it so badly, he wasn't sure he could handle the disappointment if he was wrong, if she was lying... "You're dead."

Her green eyes widened. Jade. Perfect, like stone. "No."

"The paper," The air began attacking his nose, his mouth, his lungs. He thrust the paper and recently smudged evidence in her direction. "No! You're dead! You didn't survive!" His voice was getting louder. Here he was, Copy Ninja and Hokage, and he was losing it...

And then she took the slip of paper from his hand. Her eyes narrowed in concentration, reading symbol after symbol until, finally, she let it slip carelessly from her hand. His eyes stayed looking at her fingers. He could see bone, and her knuckles were terrible gashes. If she was real, she had to be in some pain...

She took another careful step toward the incredulous man who kept his place, too shocked or scared to move a single centimeter. Then she tilted her head, assessing him, her eyes meeting his own mismatched gaze.

The thought occurred to him, it could be a trick. The sounds outside his office could still be real bombs and they could still be under attack... _But he could smell her_... Maybe her death and his unspoken infatuation had sent him over the edge and this was a hallucination. The paper moved because he dropped it and he only saw and smelled and heard her because he wanted to...

And then her hand, broken fingers and all, was touching his cheek. Her eyes were still locked on his, as if sharing some special and unspoken conversation. He could see so much in them, and the only word that came to mind was _home._ Kakashi could smell the blood her hand accidentally smeared on his cheek. He could feel the moisture, sweat, blood and mud. It was the unholy trinity of their trade, and she wore it like perfume as she stood before him. _She was still so beautiful._

So when she put her chapped lips to his, he didn't pull back. Kakashi didn't stop her because that had been his plan. He was going to celebrate the New Year by showing her what she meant to him. He finally moved his arms, gently pulling her closer to him. If this was real, and the taste of her saliva and something else that was very salty and metallic suggested _it was_, then he was going to make the most of it. His tongue shamelessly explored her small cavern until his lungs screamed for relief and his brain reminded him of her condition. When he pulled away and opened his eyes, nothing else mattered. Sakura was smiling, her eyes still closed and he watched her savor the moment.

When she finally did open them a couple of seconds later, she sighed in contentment. It wasn't a word, but Kakashi felt himself agree with her wholeheartedly. "I'm not dead," She clarified in a soft tone.

"No. You're not." A part of him wanted to follow that with something along the lines of _thank Kami..._ But that would be silly. He wasn't in the mood for silly.

Her dirty pink eyebrows raised in mirth. "But I _am_ late."

An exasperated breath escaped Kakashi's lips. "Yes. Yes, you are."

"Happy New Year, Kakashi."

He pulled her close to him, then. He was grateful, happy but still aware that they were not yet out of the woods, given how bad she looked. "Happy New Year, Sakura, but don't you _ever EVER_ do that to _me_--or your teammates--_again_." Kakashi ran his fingers through her hair, careful not to cut himself on her broken white mask when she moved to chuckle.

"I won't," She promised, her breath hot against his chest. "I'll even make it my resolution."

Kakashi ignored her joke. Instead, he closed his eyes and made a mental note to restrict Sakura to the hospital for a while and remind shinobi teams about what qualifies as "dead."


End file.
